


Not Today

by HoldHerTightAndSayHerName



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hopeful Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 07:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21158066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoldHerTightAndSayHerName/pseuds/HoldHerTightAndSayHerName
Summary: How do you keep living after losing the one you loved?[Bear with me until the end! I'm not one for depressing endings. This is my submission for the One Quote, One Shot Challenge (book 2) - my assigned quote is highlighted in bold.]





	Not Today

I woke up in semi-darkness to a pounding headache and the sound of my phone buzzing on the coffee table. With a grunt, I propped myself up on the sofa’s armrest, and reached over a pile of takeaway boxes and a glass of wine. A swipe, and the screen lit up, a little too bright.

_ You have (3) new messages _.

I cringed as the mechanical voice of the answering machine reverberated against my ear, followed by a softer, more familiar one.

_ “Claire, it’s Geil. You canna go on ignorin’ us all of like that!” _ A pause. _ “Look, I know you need to be alone, but we’re... worried about you, you wee bam.” _ We— Rupert and her, that was. They’d been inseparable for the past year; we’d helped them move to a new place that summer; third floor, no lift, the grand ascent of Geil’s wardrobe in the narrow stairs... “ _ Anyway _ , _ I left Greggs rolls at your doorstep. Will you please move your fat arse and text me?” _

With a sigh, I slowly emptied the contents of the glass into a bowl of dry Basmati rice, and proceeded to fill it up with whisky.

_ “Mrs. Fraser, hello, _ _ this is the Meadowbank Dental Practice. We were calling to confirm your appointment tomorrow with Dr. Rankin at 2:30pm; could you_—_” _

My breath caught, and I pressed my cheek against the cool smoothness of the glass, closing my eyes and bracing myself against a fresh surge of tears. Somehow, out there, third molar extractions were being performed, sausage rolls were being baked, buses drove across Edinburgh, people went to work, babies were being born, tourists walked along the Royal Mile, chai latte was being served at our favourite café. And the world kept turning, obscenely, irrevocably. I took a swig of my drink.

_ “Claire, it’s Geil again. I know you’ve been reading my messages, and you shouldna be alone on Christmas day, so if you’re not going to Lallybroch, plea_—_” _

Wiping my face with a Nandos napkin, I tapped the screen one more time.

_ “Deleted.” _

They didn’t know.

_ “You have no new messages.” _

But then again, how could they?

I put down my phone, swallowed the rest of the whisky, took myself to bed wrapped in his favourite sweater, and let the pulsating darkness engulf me once more.

***

_ 4 weeks earlier_

A drop of water dripped from the faucet, hitting the soapy surface of the sink with a ‘plop’ that seemed almost deafening in the empty silence of the kitchen. I didn’t move, biting my lips until I tasted blood, unconsciously increasing the muscle tension between my shoulder blades.

I could hear muffled voices in the next room, their soft murmur punctuated by the clink of spoons on teacups. Perfect product of my English upbringing, I had set the table myself, kettle, pot, teabags, milk, sugar. A pile of paper napkins. A box of Marks & Spencer shortbreads bought by Geillis. Or maybe it was John. Such an English thing to do, I thought dimly—make litres of bloody Earl Grey, and sip it quietly while the world burned to ashes.

Whoever was left in the next room, _ somebody _had to tell them to leave. Not me, dear God—I couldn’t go back there. Maybe, if I sneaked out through the garden path, I could...

I took a deep breath through my nose, following the tiny, almost imperceptible waves that spread across the soapy water, and forced the air out of my lungs. The last soft ripple hit the handle of a blue bowl, and the water was calm again, sleek and a little oily. The iron grip released my throat just a little, enough for the ice to settle and sink heavily in my stomach.

_ Get a grip, Beauchamp. Name five things you can see. _

Two robins, mindlessly pecking crumbs in the front garden; a lonely cloud in Edinburgh’s sky that ironically seemed to have lost its usual gloom; the cat’s litter box—funny how I had no recent memory of changing it, but if I couldn’t smell it, it probably meant I had? One, two, three, four teacups; a bar of lavender soap.

_ Alright. Now, four things you can touch. _

I noticed my hands grabbing the edge of the sink, knuckles turned white, mentally scanning them like some foreign objects found on an antique store shelf. The long fingers, the nails trimmed right at the base. The little scar on the ball of my thumb. My wedding ring—a simple gold band, engraved on the inside. _ Til our lives shall be done. _

I swallowed, feeling dizzy.

_ His crinkly eyes, impossibly blue, shining a little too bright as he held my hands between his. His lips, reciting the immemorial, sacred words, and their soft touch against my mouth, when everything was said and done... _

“Claire? My parents are leaving.”

I startled, dropping the dish sponge in the sink, and from the edge of my vision, caught a glimpse of shiny jet black hair. My sister-in-law was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, pale, an unreadable look on her face.

“I’ll be there in a minute, Jenny.”

“Alright. I’ll go get their coats.”

Without a word, I turned, pulled the sink stopper, and the water slowly swirled down the drain until there was nothing but a few vanishing bubbles. I smoothed out my skirt, tucked a stray curl behind my ear, and walked towards Ellen and Brian Fraser.

*

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay the night? It’s getting rather late...”

“Thank ye, Claire. Dinna fash yerself, it isna freezing and the sky is clear- we should be in Lallybroch before supper.”

Brian Fraser’s voice was strained and exhausted. A handsome man with his gorgeous mane of silver hair, he stood tall in his navy overcoat, one arm slung around his wife’s arm, but I saw the deep lines carving his mouth, the slight slump of his shoulders.

Ellen had a distant look on her face. As always, her soft red hair was tied into a low bun, attached with a single tortoise shell pin. She wore a black turtleneck that highlighted her chiselled jaw and high cheekbones, but the light that usually lit her eyes had been drained out of her. She rifled through her purse, looking for a missing glove, and then started fiddling with her pearl necklace, the long fingers twisting it into a knot before releasing it.

“Let us know if ye need anything, alright love?” she whispered. “I’ll call ye tomorrow.”

She was so unlike her usual composed self, so oddly vulnerable with that quiver in her voice that I fought the urge to run inside and slam the door behind me.

_ Go. Please, just go. _

They hugged me goodbye at the door, the weight of everything unsaid threatening to swallow us whole. As they walked away, I thought they had never looked older.

*

When I came back in the living room, the TV was on, the muted screen tuned to an old black and white movie. My head was pounding, giving me a crawling sensation on each side of the skull, so I opened a wooden cabinet and poured myself a glass of whisky, draining it in three gulps, feeling the golden heat bloom in my chest. I was about to go for a second glass when I heard footsteps behind me.

Jenny reached for the remote to turn off the TV and came to stand beside me by the window.

“You should go home.” I turned my head slightly, glancing at my sister-in-law’s protruding stomach, fighting the inexplicable urge to scream. “Ian is waiting for you. He barely saw you this week.”

Slowly, Jenny took the bottle from my hands, her eyes circled with shadows.

“I told him I’d spend the night here.”

This time, I firmly fixed my gaze on the window.

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Claire, ye canna…”

“You’ve been here for a week.” My voice sounded strange even to my own ears; I sipped more of the amber liquid. “I really appreciate it, I do, but I’m telling you the same thing I told Geil: I need to be alone.”

I heard Jenny’s breath catch—she was fighting back tears. This wasn’t right. Jenny Murray never cried.

_ Please, Jen. Just go. _

There was a rush of air, a very light scent of bitter almond, a strand of hair brushing against my cheek, and my sister-in-law was hugging me tightly, without a word. Very slowly, I raised my arms to embrace her small frame, feeling her pregnant figure against my ribs, and a small vibration between us. Was it the baby kicking, or Jenny’s heartbeat? A feeling of unspeakable loneliness bloomed in my chest, but already, she was stepping towards the door.

I watched the car drive away in the one-way street, until the headlights were two small dots in the darkness. It was a Sunday evening and Edinburgh was quiet, with only a few sirens’ calls in the distance. Adso appeared silently by my side, little panther moving between the leaves of a bush, and I sat on the stairs to stroke him gently, focusing on the droplets of humidity gathered on the surface of his thick black fur, feeling the warmth trapped under it. After a while, when the rain started to fall and my fingers turned blue, I stood up and went back inside, alone for the first time since my husband’s death.

***

  
_ 4 weeks later_

Caught in an alcohol-induced slumber, I laid awake for long stretches of time, and tried to ignore the way my lower back sank in the mattress, the light that filtered through the curtains, the nausea that was beginning to settle, the memories flashing before my closed eyelids. In the silence of our home, broken only by the erratic thump of my heart against my chest, there was no peace to be found.

We’d moved into this two-bedroom colony house in Stockbridge as newlyweds, after spending ten months renovating it. I remembered with scorching vividness Jamie, cautiously taping off windows, draping floors and protecting the kitchen’s marble counter with old newspaper, and I perched on a stepladder with a large roller, distracting myself from my fear of heights by babbling—could he pass the sandpaper? Wasn’t that shade of grey a little too light? I couldn’t make up the exact words, but I heard his laugh, the sound of his voice, soothing.

We’d made a home together. And four weeks ago, as the ambulance waited outside, I’d packed a bag for him with shaking hands—his wallet, his reading glasses, clean underwear, jeans and a green shirt—not realizing that he would never come back.

_ He would never come back _.

I let my hand fall back on the quilt, exposing my wrist, and placed two fingers midway up my forearm. During my residency in emergency medicine, I’d seen my share of unsuccessful suicides, those who slashed their wrists from side to side, the wounds small mouths that cried for help. And I’d seen those who meant it.

The cat jumped on the bed with a low trill and settled on my chest, thoroughly kneading Jamie’s sweater. I sighed and shifted uncomfortably.

“Go away, Adso.”

Oblivious to my protest, he started purring loudly, and I felt the pinch of his too-sharp claws going through the fabric, snagging a thread and leaving a pull in the soft grey wool.

“Shit!” Sitting abruptly, I pushed back the quilt, making him bolt out of the bed. “Look at what you’ve done!”

He merely gave me a reproachful look, waving his tail from side to side in wide arcs, and glided towards the door like a shadow. 

Clutching the sweater with both hands, I tried to steady myself and took one long, deep breath through my nose. But with the familiar scent of leather and aftershave, loss ran through me like a wave, racking my body with the convulsions of pain. Suddenly gasping for air, I buried my face in the worn-out fabric, and went very quietly and thoroughly to pieces.

*

**I slept, eventually. And I dreamed. Fever dreams of weariness and desolation, of an impossible task done endlessly. Unceasing painful effort, carried out in a stony, barren place. Of thick gray fog, through which loss pursued me like a demon in the mist.** Walking on a narrow path surrounded by rocks and snow-capped peaks, I heard sharp crunchy sounds as the white crystals broke under my steps. The fog closed around me, and I heard my name, as clearly as a bell. Blindly, I started to run. As I took my eyes off the trail, the snow gave way, disintegrating under my feet. I leaped into the void— and woke up with a gasp.

Based on the shadows that tinged the walls of the bedroom, it was the middle of the night. I brushed a sweaty lock of hair from my forehead, and risked a look at the alarm clock on the bedside table. 4:07am. Another day. I’d survived another day without him.

Some days, I’d forget. Entangled in the half-consciousness of sleep, for a few blissful seconds, I’d reach for his warmth. But on days like today, memories would hit me in the chest like a fist. And to try to escape them, I would do what I did best before I met Jamie: run away.

Moved by impulse, I stood up, grabbed my keys, a scarf and a long grey coat, and went out the door.

  
*

More than three years had gone by since my last visit to Craigh-na-Dun, and the stones still stood in the distance, cold and dark in the early morning light.

_We were spending a bank holiday weekend in Lallybroch, and Jamie had suggested a long walk to work off his Mam’s sticky toffee pudding. I remembered his light kisses that tasted of butter and preserved cherries, the air soft and sunlit, the__ earth still warm from an uncommonly hot day for the end of August._ _About halfway through our tour, a heavy rain had caught us by surprise. We’d ran towards the nearest hill, giggling and shrieking like two teenagers, and had sought refuge under a small clearing of sky-high trees. That’s when we’d seen them._

Clumsily, I grabbed the golden bottle of Glenfiddich bought at a local Tesco on the road—I’d made a detour to avoid Broch Mordha, where too many people knew me as a Fraser. The plump shopkeeper had looked mildly alarmed, taking in the dirty hair and the stained sweater of her very first customer, but at 72 pounds a bottle...

I slammed the car’s door and headed towards the hill.

_ “I remember this place. Haven’t been here since I was a lad…” Jamie’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. “Family legend says that one of my ancestors met a fairy in these woods.” _

_ I'd smiled, crouching to pick a small branch of forget-me-nots. _

_ “A good fairy? Did she grant him three wishes?” _

_ “Just the one,” he'd laughed softly. “She agreed to stay.” _

_ As the sun peeked through the leaves, we’d walked in the middle of the circle, my soaked linen dress clinging to my stomach and thighs, his shirt dark and heavy with rain, and he’d shot me a strange look. _

_ “What’s the matter?” Suddenly self-conscious, I’d started detangling my matted locks. “Oh, shit.” My fingertips had come across something sticky, probably a bit of pine cone. “Alright, on a scale from one to ten, how mental do I l-...” _

_ “Marry me, Claire.” _

_ I’d blinked once, twice, and burst into laughter. _

_ “What?” _

_ “Ye heard me.” He’d taken my hand, and tucked a wet curl behind my ear. “Marry me, Claire Beauchamp.” _

The wind blew hard on top of the hill, shaking the patches of brown winter heather that grew at the bottom of the stones. A shiver ran through my spine.

_ Words dying on my lips, I stood frozen, staring at the drops dripping off his forehead. Of course, we’d talked about it once or twice, but... _

_ “I ken ye’re not one for fancy weddings. We dinna have to make it a ‘thing’. But I just…” His voice dropping to a murmur, he’d cupped my cheek with infinite tenderness, brushing his thumb against my cheekbone. “I would very much like to call ye my wife, Sassenach. For the rest of our lives.” He’d cleared his voice choked with emotion, suddenly looking very self-conscious. “If ye’ll have me, that is. We can_—_” _

_ “Idiot.” _ _ My lips against his, fingers in his hair. “Yes, James Fraser, I’ll have you.” The salty taste of our tears. “Yes, I’ll marry you.” _

I sat in the grass heavily, the freezing mud getting through the fabric of my jeans. I didn’t feel the wind anymore.

I thought of his mouth, so soft and tender and mine. When I’d found him on the bathroom floor that afternoon, his skin hadn’t had time to cool down. He’d merely looked asleep, the golden hair of his beard glistening in the light.

It was Dougal McQueen who had performed the autopsy. I only remembered hearing the results, blaringly clear. Aortic dissection. At 32 years old, his heart had inexplicably burst.

Nothing I could have done—or so they’d told me. My rational mind couldn’t disagree, but my heart raged against a senseless diagnosis. Jamie was athletic. Stellar blood pressure, no history of smoking or illicit substance use, no family history of sudden cardiac death or any collagen vascular disease. Had he experienced any symptoms? A bolt of pain shooting up his chest, shortness of breath?

My restless mind always went back to the same conclusion: I must have missed a sign. After all, I was the surgeon. I was supposed to know better. Was it the occasional weightlifting? That time he’d thought he’d twisted his neck? _ Delayed diagnosis can adversely affect patient outcome, _ _with an overall mortality of 1-2% per hour for the first day_… The numbers swayed before my eyes, mixed with the memories of that day. My call to 999, hyperventilating. My hands on his chest, doing CPR when deep down, I already knew. His face, peaceful. My breath, shutting down. Stay with me, Jamie, come on, stay with me stay with me staywithme.

“You must have felt _ something!_” I’d spoken out loud. Not for the first time, a surge of electricity bolted through me. “Anything!”

I stood up, swaying a little, letting the half-empty bottle roll and spill on the grass.

“Did you?” I twirled around, looking at the sky. “Because if-if only you’d talked to me, you could have-... I could have-...”

My tongue felt heavy against my palate, and it was getting difficult to maintain a straight train of thought. Jamie had made me a woman who found it easy to love and to be loved. He’d been my best friend, my lover, my confidant, my companion. Now that he was gone, I just felt cold. Empty. Afraid.

_ Swallowing my answer, he had pressed me between him and the stone, and we’d made love with a raging hunger, breathless with want, drunk with the promise of countless tomorrows, mouth against mouth, warm flesh against the cold hardness of the rock. _

I turned towards the highest stone, and slammed my hands against it with a low, guttural scream, so hard the shock of the impact sent vibrations up my arm.

“_Til our lives shall be done, _ Fraser!”, I cried, pounding my palm harder with each syllable. “Our _ whole _lives, not three years, two months and six days! This wasn’t the plan!”

My ears were buzzing; I tried and failed to remember when I’d last eaten something warm, and how much I’d had to drink. It didn’t seem important then. My knees gave way, and I slowly sank to the ground.

“Please help me,” I whispered against the stone, icy tears running down my neck. “I can't do this, Jamie. I don’t know how to _ be _without you.”

A cold winter sun was rising behind the trees. My fingers were numb, stinging with a thousand needles. Perhaps I _ did _have a bit too much to drink. Oh, God, I was going to faint. As I closed my eyes, I heard a strange screeching sound, and everything went black.

***

_I was dead. Everything around me was a blinding white, and there was a soft, rushing sound, like the wings of angels. I felt peaceful and bodiless. Free of terror, free of rage, filled with a quiet happiness. _

A strong smell of antiseptics and sterilizers, a mild whiff of mashed potatoes. 

Perhaps I wasn’t dead after all—unless the afterlife was just another endless hospital shift, a journey surrounded by brisk nurses and busy colleagues; _ this way doctor Fraser, just follow the light at the end of the ward_...

A dull pain creeped under my left ribs, an odd weight pressed on my right leg, and I had the headache of the century. There was a bed under me, but I couldn’t open my eyes. God, I was so tired.

Images came to me in flashes. The night drive to the Highlands. The stones on top of the hill. The bottle of whisky spilling at my feet. Perhaps if my head stopped spinning for a minute, I would go back to sleep and—

“Good mornin’, Mr. Fraser. No, no—no need to move. I’m only going to change the IV bag, and I’ll be on my way.”

I heard someone shift on my right, the chair creaking lightly under their weight. 

_ Mr. Fraser_. Oh, shit. Someone had called Brian, told him I had collapsed on top of a fairy hill, two miles away from his house, drunk as a skunk on a Monday morning, two days before Christmas. _ Wonderful_.

The nurse’s voice again, soft and kind.

“Dinna fash yerself. The skin abrasions will go away—the seatbelt hit her pretty hard, but there’s no sign of neck or intra-abdominal injuries.”

I felt the brush of light fingers on my arm, and the footsteps went away.

Wrapped in a cotton-like cloud of fog, I still managed to frown a little. _ Seatbelt_? Did this mean I had been driving? If only I could find the energy to think clearly...

“Claire?”

My blood froze. This wasn’t Brian’s voice.

“Thank Christ. Sassenach, can ye hear me?”

Warm hands engulfing mine; this time, I was truly losing it. Was it the impact of the trauma, or the really bad hangover? I decided that it didn’t matter, and tried to speak.

“What… happened?”

A stifled sob, wetness on my cheek.

“Ye were on your way to Lallybroch, to see Jenny and the bairn, remember? There was an accident...”

_ The bairn? Had Jenny given birth? But she wasn’t due until... _This didn't make any sense. Lesions in the dorsolateral prefrontal right cortex, most probably. I let out a muffled groan.

“Ye’re alright, _ mo chridhe_. Everything is going to be alright.”

Damn it, the human brain was good at self-protection. With a superhuman effort, I managed to pry my eyelids apart, and focused on the blurred face looking down on me. A face with red-rimmed eyes, impossibly blue. I was hallucinating.

“Am I… Are we dead?”

“No.” He laughed with a sharp inhale of air, like a man who’d just remembered how to breathe.

Unable to move, I stared wordlessly at my husband’s face, feeling the steady pulse of his heartbeat beneath my fingertips.

“There will come a day when you and I must part, Sassenach,” Jamie whispered against my lips. “But it willna be today.”

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to my sweet reader Carole, and to her late husband Bill. ♥


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